


Surprise Inside

by paintedrecs



Series: Painted Landscapes (tumblr fics) [10]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Baking, Birthdays, Love Confessions, M/M, POV Derek Hale, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-29
Updated: 2017-10-29
Packaged: 2019-01-26 09:28:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,587
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12554396
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paintedrecs/pseuds/paintedrecs
Summary: When Derek saw the cake recipe online, a few weeks before Stiles's birthday, it'd seemed like a sign.





	Surprise Inside

**Author's Note:**

> I was updating my tumblr's fic list and remembered [this one](http://paintedrecs.tumblr.com/post/138964555020/sweetoothgirl-easy-surprise-inside-batman).

When Derek saw the cake recipe online, a few weeks before Stiles's birthday, it'd seemed like a sign. The first few tries didn’t go so well, but Derek finally figured out the proper way to bake it so the shape inside would hold. He did three more practice runs to test that it was working—excessive, maybe, but it was  _important_. He didn’t want to make any mistakes this time. Then he frosted the last one and waited for Stiles and the pack to come over to start the party. 

They showed up, in a big mass of sound and laughter and everyone clustering around Stiles to make a big fuss over him. Derek had thought Stiles might get there a little earlier, like he often did for pack gatherings, to putter around and bug Derek and get kicked out of the kitchen. But Derek hadn’t really thought through the fact that it was Stiles’s 21st birthday and he’d not only graduated from college but alcohol was also now _legal_  (nevermind the fact that they’d all been drinking since high school). It still counted as a special occasion, which meant that Scott dragged Stiles to a liquor store and Stiles got to beam at the security cameras and flash his ID at the deputies grabbing coffee from the shop next door (who rolled their eyes because they all knew Stiles far too well, and didn’t want to think about what two bags stuffed with clinking bottles of cheap whiskey meant for the night).

So the first thing everyone did, of course, was break out the alcohol and toast to Stiles (some raunchy, but mostly just rowdy). Derek figured he’d wait a little—maybe hold off on giving Stiles the cake until everyone had calmed down some, and it was quieter, and he’d have the full weight of Stiles’s attention on him. The kind of attention that made him ache, sometimes, and that he’d spent years running away from (mostly unintentionally, but _god_ is the fear of getting hurt debilitating when it actually matters). But with Stiles finally coming  _home_ , Derek thought maybe he had a chance. He could start over, with both of them on a more equal playing field, and take it slow, see what happened. He wasn’t going to tell Stiles he was in love with him—not right away, anyway, that’d be crazy. He’d never…well, he might, if Stiles startled it out of him, so he had to be careful, but that’s why the first gesture had to be big but not _too_  big, not yet. And not in front of everyone else.

But before Derek realized what was happening, Isaac and Scott came out of the kitchen with armloads of food—chips, salsa, anything they could find in Derek’s cabinets or fridge—and  _oh fuck, the cake_. Derek hadn’t thought to  _hide_  it or anything. He hadn’t really considered that he’d need to come up with a solid plan. He’d had  _years_ , and he hadn’t thought through any of this at all, had he? He froze, but Stiles just whooped in excitement, and someone dug out a candle and lit it. Stiles blew it out, after making a wish and winking at Derek.

The pack dug into it, then, making a giant mess, not even bothering to cut it properly, so the perfectly baked golden-yellow Batman-hiding cake quickly turned into a mangled mass of crumbs and pack members licking their fingers and making approving noises. Stiles licked his fingers, too, grinning around them at Derek and waggling his eyebrows, but Derek couldn’t take the time to appreciate it. The gift had been ruined. Stiles hadn’t even seen the surprise inside. “Oh, cool, is that a chocolate center?” he’d said at first, then gotten distracted by the others piling presents on top of him.

Lydia gave him some ridiculously expensive handcrafted laptop bag, and Stiles wiped the crumbs and frosting off his hands so he could stroke them over the buttery leather. Everyone got him something amazing and thoughtful, even Isaac, and all Derek did was bake him a cake.

It’d seemed like the right idea at the time, but with nothing left on the plate, it felt like one of Derek’s stupidest decisions. (And he’d made a lot of stupid decisions over the years.  _A lot_.)

Stiles had told him once, years earlier, about how when he was a kid, his mom always used to make him really elaborate cakes. One of his favorites had marshmallow animals carefully posed on top of a cake frosted to look like the center ring of a circus. She did a lot like that—none of them professionally done, and sometimes it wasn’t even all that apparent what the decorations were supposed to be. Stiles’s dad would tease her about it and guess terribly obscure things until she slapped at him and started laughing. But the point was, Stiles had said, he loved it because it meant his mom had spent time on it. It meant she loved him and wanted his birthday to be special.

The last cake she’d made for Stiles, the year she got sick and stopped being able to do much of anything at all, was a superhero one. Stiles had pictures, and he’d even shown one to Derek—a copy he kept folded up in his wallet and didn’t look at, much, because it still hurt to remember what it’d been like when his mom was around. But—there are bad hurts, and there are good hurts, and this was a memory Stiles said he didn’t want to lose. He wanted to remember his mom laughing and his dad gazing at her with that adoring look he always had on his face, and he wanted to remember himself being a big-headed, freckle-faced child blowing out his candles in excitement.

It’d been a good idea, Derek had thought. It’d show Stiles that—well, that he cared, too. That he remembered what was important to Stiles and wanted to give him a little of that joy again. But maybe not. Maybe it was better that it’d turned out this way. He’d been intruding on something precious to Stiles. It wasn’t Derek's place, and Stiles  _was_  happy, and he didn’t need Derek for that, anyway.

So Derek tried to smile when Stiles looked his way, and he admired the other presents, and lied and told Stiles his hadn’t arrived in the mail yet, and that he was sorry, and he’d give it to him later.

It was Stiles's birthday, after all. It was about him, not about Derek’s stupid feelings that never  _went away_ , even when he’d tried. That kept getting stronger, year after year, until they expanded his chest so much it felt, sometimes, like they’d crack his ribs.

He’d broken his ribs before, though. He could breathe through the pain again, if he had to.

So he smiled. And he clinked his glass against Stiles’s and muttered his way through an embarrassed toast that didn’t say a tenth of what he really felt. And he pushed it all down.

***

But the thing was, you see. Derek had obsessed  _so much_ over the cake’s perfection—the final version wasn’t the only one. He’d wrapped up one of the prior successes, partially sliced, and stuck it in the back of the freezer, then forgotten about it.

Weeks passed, and Stiles kept coming over, sprawling on Derek’s couch. Sitting cross-legged on his bed and eating chips until Derek pushed him off it and made him vacuum. Weaving himself into every aspect of Derek’s life until he couldn’t imagine Stiles not being a part of it—but knowing that some day, he’d  _have_  to accept that reality. He'd have to move on. Or…well, Derek wasn’t built to move on, not really. But he'd get used to the way things were. Even if sometimes, he still dreamed about the possibilities.

One day, on an afternoon like any other, Stiles was rummaging around in Derek’s freezer, yelling a story about his day to Derek, like he couldn’t hear it from only a room away. He stuttered to a stop in the middle, and Derek frowned and looked up from his book (which he’d been reading while listening to Stiles—yes, Stiles, he could pay attention to both), but it took a while for the freezer door to shut again. Then Stiles came back into the living room, his hands empty, looking a little weird, like he’d seen a ghost, and said he had to go.

Stiles didn’t return for a couple days after that. It wasn’t  _unusual—_ he had an active life and a busy job, and sometimes Derek didn’t see him that regularly—but it did make him worry when Stiles didn’t send him streams of bored texts throughout the day.

When Stiles did come back, though, he was holding a cake—clumsily baked, kind of lopsided, and crisper on the edges than it was supposed to be. He held it out to Derek, and Derek furrowed his eyebrows and asked what the occasion was.

"Just slice it open," Stiles said. "But—carefully."

And when Derek did, the knife sliding easily through the messy frosting and fluffy white interior, Stiles reached out, and put his hand over Derek’s, and gently set aside the slice.

Inside the cake, baked into the center, was a bright red heart: sloppily depicted, but undeniable.

"I loved my birthday present," Stiles said, smiling at him, his attention entirely fixed on Derek.

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me [on tumblr](http://paintedrecs.tumblr.com), trying to keep things organized.


End file.
